Exodus 16:8
And Moses said, This shall be, when the LORD shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the full; for that the LORD heareth your murmurings which ye murmur against him: and what are we? your murmurings are not against us, but against the LORD.

We can find a lot of reasons to murmur and complain—when things don’t go our way, when we face hardships, when we don’t get what we want, when we don’t understand what is happening, when things seem overwhelming, when we don’t like what is happening to us.  And it can seem so harmless until we realize that God has brought us to that place.  He has engineered our circumstances.  He has put us where we are and knows exactly what we are facing.  So we are not, then, murmuring against the people around us or some faceless happenings, but the God who is in control of our lives.

God did not lead the people out into the wilderness to leave them there to starve to death.  He did not bring them out of the great oppression of their bondage to face a cruel death far from everything they had known.  He had not led them there unaware of their needs or unable to meet them.  All of His promises were still valid and applicable even though things seemed so dire at this particular moment.  God had a purpose for every place He brought them.  He had a purpose for every trial.  He had a reason for everything they experienced along the way.

And the same is certainly true for us.  God knows exactly where we are just now.  He knows the hardships we are facing, the needs we have, the things that we are struggling with.  He is aware of everything that is happening in our lives and has not abandoned us to face those things alone.  He has a purpose for the place we are in even if we don’t understand it.  He has a solution to our great need even if we can’t see it from where we’re standing.  He has the whole story written and the details worked out long before we even reach that wilderness.

So let us not murmur against God or the leadership He’s placed over us or the circumstances we find ourselves in.  Let us trust our Lord, because our lives are in His hands.  Let’s have faith that He knows what He’s doing and He won’t let us down.  Let us live with an understanding that things in our lives won’t work out perfectly or exactly as we want them to go, but they will happen just how God intends them to.  He rules and reigns.  He is in control.  He is with us.  And we can depend on Him for everything and in every situation.